We have never been more enlightened, more involved in, and more affected by a pandemic than this one. Did we? COVID-19 has put life on hold for many of us. The outbreak has changed the way we work, the way we interact with people, the way we buy things, we travel and so on. It is the high time to reflect on our own behaviour amidst the epidemic. Here are five truths about ourselves that gradually we are learning from Coronavirus outbreak:
Hygiene Being the Top Most Priority
This may sound dumb because most people may not have realized until the pandemic that soap kills some kinds of viruses and bacteria. We are following a complete hygienic routine —washing our hands with soap, keeping alcohol-based hand sanitizers by us. Finally, “thanks” to Coronavirus that common Indians have switched to a healthy and hygienic lifestyle! Yeah, now I am damn sure every one of us will be doing that even more regularly when this deadly virus becomes “past.”
Money is Not Everything
Just a couple of months before, one way all of us weighed our mental well-being was by our material abundance. There’s no point to note that the epidemic has devastated the economy and many of us are poorer than we were a month before. Has anything good come out of it? The biggest lesson it is telling us is that money is not everything. We remain too busy eternally running after money to make our lives better. Now we are willing to let go of it to live on.
Work from Home can be an Option for Many Businesses
A lot of people realized during this lockout time that their work could be done from home. We should remember that most workers have a certain amount of work that can be managed comfortably from home without going to the workplace. We should find a way just to encourage the harmony between our job and family.
Power of the Internet
The COVID-19 crisis has illustrated the importance of net and digital platforms. Imagine the reality we would have experienced at the beginning of the 21st century– slow internet and negligible digital boom. Now that we have access to 4G, LTE and most of the essential services have already gone digitized because of that work from home, online classes, tracking COVID-19 (from Arogya Setu app), money transfer and so many other things got possible when we all are following the lockdown. What we need today is free internet access as a human right, provided it should not cost the human basic needs like food, water, etc.
The Value of Interacting with Close Friends and Family
For many years and scientists have stated that we have a strong innate tendency to be with other people to share experiences, or rather our existence. All the research suggests that in the long term more connected people are happier and safer. During this lockdown, the best way to treat loneliness is to be in regular touch with friends, family, and relatives. Being alone can be frustrating, in particular for extroverts. Social distancing may be very complicated, in the true sense, but it can also tell one a lot about ourselves. This is the moment to chill and have long talks and healthy discussions.
Our lives have undergone major changes. And due to this, we have also realised the importance of a lot of things we have been taken for granted before! So, let us not go back to the normal and together create a “new normal” once this is all over!
